Disciplining De Facto Development: Water Theft and Hydrosocial Order in Tijuana

Informal and illegal water provision is increasingly targeted as an impediment to state authorities and water development in the Global South. In contrast, this paper uses a biopolitical approach to argue that state authorities use illegal forms of water provision as a source of power, particularly to discipline certain spaces and sectors of the population; and moreover, that such power geometries are deeply uneven. To support these claims, I examine the production and enforcement of illegal provision in two communities located in Tijuana, Mexico. I examine how water theft functions—including the key objects and practices that shape the illicit abstraction and distribution of water—and then examine how water theft is policed and enforced by state authorities. Following Foucault, I suggest these processes occur on a bodily and infrastructural level to discipline water users. Findings indicate that while water theft supplies a vital resource for marginalized citizens—often in communal ways that exceed state power—the alternating tolerance and repression of water illegality is largely used by authorities to maintain hydrosocial order and, in effect, to control informal modes of development. The paper concludes with implications for understanding water informality and the uneven spatiality of state power.